Cage's 4'33" isn't really what I think of as an atonal composition, either, although you could possibly make a case.
I somehow doubt he is trying to be historically accurate.
I really liked that atonal solo in the middle of it. Its just nerdy internet stuff but I'd like to think passers by might be horrified/mystified and curious enough to check it out.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 14:38 (five years ago) link
The solo really clinches it. Wouldn't be a worthwhile meme otherwise.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 14:41 (five years ago) link
No point to this kind of thing if it's not well-informed imo. Otherwise, it comes closer to being a put-down (of something that probably doesn't need to be taken down).
― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 14:59 (five years ago) link
(Solo is the best part.)
― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:01 (five years ago) link
To be fair, this is how most people perceive it. I've taken friends/relatives to several such concerts, made them listen to recordings and 'cold, forbidding complexity' remains their takeaway to this day. I frankly gave up a long time ago.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:03 (five years ago) link
Even early 20th century abstract painting elicits less incomprehension, no doubt because it's less time-consuming.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:05 (five years ago) link
Yeah, that's sort of why I dislike this.
― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:06 (five years ago) link
I don't imagine that modern literature fans would eagerly share a comedy song about pining for the emotionless, incomprehensible writing of modern authors like Joyce, Woolf, Beckett, and cummings (but maybe they would).
― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:25 (five years ago) link
I probably would tbh. But I've abandoned all hope of ever turning more than a pinch of people on to 'modernist' art. And when it does happen, it's usually an accident.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:28 (five years ago) link
It would have to be a comedy short story
― imago, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:30 (five years ago) link
There's a whole book about this phenomenon - the subtitle is something like Why Do People Like Rothko But Not Schoenberg? I've always meant to read it.
― grawlix (unperson), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:40 (five years ago) link
Here it is; it's called Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen
― grawlix (unperson), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:42 (five years ago) link
That sounds interesting. I'd need to be convinced of the premise first, though.
― jmm, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:45 (five years ago) link
I'll have to check it out, thanks. Too bad there's no matching phenomenon for poetry (haikus notwithstanding).
xp
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:45 (five years ago) link
The book is an OK read. Idk if it really arrives at a satisfying answer to that question and it turns into a kind of historical overview. Hard to deny that more people know Picasso and Dali than Schoenberg and Cage, at the least. I used to have my late 20th c avant-garde classes debate the question. Alex Ross and Philip Ball have also written about it (taking v different positions).xp
― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:52 (five years ago) link
Just looking at the blurb, I'm not sure that this indicates much about popular enthusiasm for modern paintings; it's more about the extravagant amounts of money being moved around: "Works by 20th century abstract artists like Mark Rothko are selling for record breaking sums at auction, while the millions commanded by works by Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon make headline news."
― jmm, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 15:55 (five years ago) link
The three reasons he arrives at in his conclusion are i) The Original (the cachet and financial value of original paintings - as you note) ii) The Distress ('difficult' music asks more of the listener than 'difficult' visual art asks of the viewer since the former is a time-based medium and you need to e.g. sit through Hymnen for two hours to even hear the piece, while you can look at a Rothko in a minute - as pomenitul notes) iii) The Corporation (wealthy corporations are more likely to sponsor modern art exhibitions than modern music concerts or recordings - although I don't think he did a great job of interrogating the reasons why this might be true).
― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 16:01 (five years ago) link
lol at alison brown up there
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 16:06 (five years ago) link
The idea is cute and a lot of work probably went into it but the ol' atonal music was NOT about favouring intellect over emotion.
there is a scene in the marlon brando version of island of dr moreau which also makes this incorrect point (Moreau plays serialism on piano, animal men get restive, Moreau plays Gershwin on piano, animal men get all happy)
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 16:20 (five years ago) link
Atonal music (incl. 12-tone) is too broad and has too many different possible approaches to really make a thesis like Stubbs's thesis stick for me. Rothko/Stockhausen is a false dichotomy imo-- Rothko's musical equivalent is Ligeti's Requiem et al., which is very easy for any listener of any level of experience or age to appreciate.
I'm trying to think of any analogs I've privately drawn between visual artist and composer and, like:
Glass = MotherwellBoulez = ??Cage = PollockStockhausen = god I don't know.. Paul McCarthy?
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 17:50 (five years ago) link
Or Rothko = Feldman, duh
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 17:51 (five years ago) link
Heh, the fact that you thought both of Ligeti and Feldman as sonic translations of Rothko is quite interesting. Analogies between the Muses are fraught with approximations, which doesn't mean that they're useless or merely fanciful or random.
For Boulez, it's tempting to say Paul Klee, because Pierre himself said so, but it wouldn't have automatically sprung to mind otherwise.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 18:14 (five years ago) link
Fwiw, Stubbs does not limit himself to atonal notated music specifically but discusses "avant-garde music" defined more broadly. Iirc, he actually spends a lot of time on free improv as well as on Hendrix, Eno, postpunk stuff like PiL, and avant electronica like Aphex Twin and Scanner, along with modern composers, which makes the thesis pretty dubious.
― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 18:16 (five years ago) link
Ooh OK that does sound interesting
And also, duh, of course Boulez = Klee, or even more so: Kandinsky
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 18:21 (five years ago) link
But I mean, isn't it true that more people buy prints of Rothko for their dorm room, or would go to a Rothko exhibit, than would buy an album of Ligeti compositions or attend a Ligeti concert? (Not sure if people enjoying films that use Ligeti in the soundtrack quite counts.) Even a noticeable segment of the paying BSO audience were unappreciative of the Violin Concerto last year. xp
― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 18:33 (five years ago) link
I would agree with that. Ligeti's popular aura is inseparable from Kubrick's visuals, whereas Rothko copycats litter the walls of countless hotels – their success is partly predicated on how easy they are to ignore.
I always come back to Pascal Quignard's quip in The Hatred of Music: 'Ears have no (eye)lids.'
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 18:44 (five years ago) link
He wrote that in the context of auditory torture (Auschwitz, Guantanamo, etc.), which I suppose leads to a broader point about music's greater potential for immediate, overwhelming and uncontrollable affect.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 18:55 (five years ago) link
Sund4r I think 2001's enduring popularity is enormously due to the enormous power and wide-spread appeal of Ligeti's Lontano and Requiem, and the dorm-room ubiquity of both that movie (at least, in my generation) and Rothko's prints make the two of them comparable under this examination
The reason why the BSO didn't like Ligeti's Violin Concerto is because, as I've stated before: it's a bad, bad, bad, bad piece
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 19:58 (five years ago) link
(I actually like the Violin Concerto fine but it lacks the thesis-forward approach of my favourite-favourites of Ligeti's work-- Clocks And Clouds, Atmospheres, Lontano, Requiem, piano pieces, Continuum, organ drone-y works. Le Grand Macabre remains the only non-micropolytonal work of Ligeti's that I've heard and really adore)
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 20:01 (five years ago) link
*micropolyphonal, ugh I always get the word wrong
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 20:02 (five years ago) link
Ligeti's is the Derrida of violin concertos. Gawriloff/Boulez's take sounds off (or it doesn't get its off-soundingness right) but Zimmermann/de Leeuw's is pitch-(im)perfect. Do you also dislike the viola sonata?
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 20:19 (five years ago) link
I was just listening to a live Isabelle Faust take of the ligeti. I’m really into Isabelle Faust rn. FGTI what about the horn trio? It is thesisy yet not micropolyphonic
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 21:55 (five years ago) link
Lutoslawski = Kandinsky Crumb = Joseph Cornell
I really need to hear that live recording! Isabelle Faust is incredible.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 22:07 (five years ago) link
You'll laugh but it was originally mediafired to me by a classical maven pen pal who passed away in 2010 and who always had the disclaimer 'please do not redistribute' with his links (he was an inveterate broadcast-capturer). The crazy thing is his mediafire account and links are still live after all these years...! Would good old Manuel care if I shared some of his stuff at this point?
Most of the rest of my live Faust holdings are from the very active SymphonyShare google group which you must join if you haven't already. This Faust jag was kicked off by an incredible performance of the Schoenberg concerto that was shared there (her + Daniel Harding)
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 22:34 (five years ago) link
Thanks, I'll look into it. There's always a way...
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 22:39 (five years ago) link
Oh god no I love the viola sonata. I think I got into some condescending rabbit hole like five years ago trying to express that I don't think alternate tuning stuff was "good composition" unless there was some kind of payoff for the performer/listener, it's like the 3D glasses of composing, like, if you're going to go there, please make it necessary, and the first movement of the Ligeti is the ne plus ultra for what I think is good writing in this regard, it's a 10/10
The rest of the sonata is basically just Bartok to me but I like it more than the Bartok solo violin sonata, so... good work Gyorgy
The horn trio I only heard once and it's fine
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 22:44 (five years ago) link
I agree w you about alt tunings Speaking of which I am about to introduce myself to the Haas String Quartet #3 “iij. Noct.” Wish me luck!
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 22:50 (five years ago) link
Not really the right thread for it maybe but I was offered a small fee to score a documentary and I got it in my head that I might write a continuous piece of music for string quartet as the score, did so, everybody's happy, going to record it on Thursday, so yay I guess I wrote a string quartet
Also I just spoke to a woman yesterday who may or may not be related somehow to ulysses but she reported that my commission for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus is a real humdinger and they're happy with it. The libretto is hilarious and has the kids singing threateningly conservative jargonism at the audience interspersed with quotes from Cyclops's angry speech to Odysseus prior to eating a couple of his men (taken from three different sources)
Anyway it's on March 21 if anybody lives in NYC and cares to attend
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 22:52 (five years ago) link
The libretto is hilarious and has the kids singing threateningly conservative jargonism at the audience interspersed with quotes from Cyclops's angry speech to Odysseus prior to eating a couple of his men (taken from three different sources)
Whoa!
― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 23:15 (five years ago) link
Ya there's a part where they sing "Satyr! Give me whey! Gulping, gaping bowls of whey!" which is literally Homer and Huntychan at the same time
Hope the kids like it
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 12 February 2019 23:33 (five years ago) link
my understanding is that the kids are finding it very amusing
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 23:56 (five years ago) link
i am amused that "the woman who may or may not be related somehow to ulysses" is communicating about a speech from the cyclops to odysseus; shit has gotten epic
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 23:57 (five years ago) link
(my connect over there is named L3ah; i imagine you're in touch with D1an3?)
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 23:58 (five years ago) link
Yep that's right
― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, 13 February 2019 00:20 (five years ago) link
cool, i'm looking forward to hearing this.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Wednesday, 13 February 2019 00:46 (five years ago) link
that song is terrible beyond belief but i don't feel validated every time somebody name-checks John Cage ymmv
― Stephen Yakkety-Yaxley-Rosbif (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 13 February 2019 00:56 (five years ago) link
In my experience, most anglophones are familiar with John Cage (4'33 in particular) and some have vaguely heard of Schoenberg and, to a lesser degree, Berg.
Webern, on the other hand…
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 13 February 2019 09:23 (five years ago) link
I'm beating a dead fun-hating horse at this point but fwiw, with regards to:
I understand that most of his videos ARE meant to be accurate and educational in their comedy (they're usually about economics rather than music): "Merle loves for his music to be used in the classroom. "
― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Wednesday, 13 February 2019 19:47 (five years ago) link
In my uni teaching experience, I couldn't really expect students to come in familiar with any modern composers of notated music, btw.
― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Wednesday, 13 February 2019 19:50 (five years ago) link
CBC's favourite Canadian classical albums of 2019: https://www.cbc.ca/music/our-20-favourite-canadian-classical-albums-of-2019-1.5335275?fbclid=IwAR01WQkjnQNtjLetJWsIk4KdMdpEMzChySg1jo8FFg9MWoOiJa0zovIJqjU
I wasn't going to post about Cicchillitti-Cowan since they are friends/colleagues but, yes, the album is really good. The Stafylakis piece actually integrates some metal influences into classical guitar music. Emily Shaw's Vespers and Cowan's Arctic Sonata also v good classical guitar albums from Ottawa/Montreal from this year.
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Tuesday, 3 December 2019 15:16 (four years ago) link
Thanks, I'll check 'em out.
That Lisiecki and Abdrazakov are Canadian is news to me.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 3 December 2019 15:22 (four years ago) link
Lisiecki is from Calgary. Abdrakazakov seems to be Russian - they're probably counting that one bc of Orchestre Métropolitain?
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Tuesday, 3 December 2019 15:26 (four years ago) link
Oh right, I misread (see ILX discussion about reading comprehension in Quebec).
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 3 December 2019 15:28 (four years ago) link
Haha
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Tuesday, 3 December 2019 15:32 (four years ago) link
RIP Mariss Jansons. I don’t have a ton of his work in my collection but his LSO Live Mahler 6th is among the very best of that symphony.
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 3 December 2019 22:21 (four years ago) link
His Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff box sets contain some of his very finest recordings – they've helped me gain a newfound appreciation for these two composers, whose music I otherwise find problematic (not in the modern, woke sense, mind you). He was also an excellent accompanist (see the Grieg/Schumann Piano Concertos with Leif Ove Andsnes) and some of his less well-known projects, such as Johan Svendsen's Symphonies 1 & 2 with the Oslo Philharmonic, are as persuasive as it gets. I was never wholly won over by his much-touted way with Shostakovich, however.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 4 December 2019 08:40 (four years ago) link
Alex Ross's preliminary EOY list:
https://www.therestisnoise.com/2019/11/preliminary-end-of-year-list.html
We don't really see eye to eye (hear ear to ear?) but the Danish Quartet's Prism II and the Riot Ensemble's Speak, Be Silent both deserve to place. At the risk of repeating myself, I'm burnt out on Feldman, found Zosha di Castro's monograph to be full of hotshot smugness and have yet to hear George Benjamin's Lessons in Love and Violence (I'm generally a big fan, even though I'm less interested in his operas).
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 4 December 2019 15:51 (four years ago) link
I’ll definitely plan to hear that Honeck/Pittsburgh Bruckner 9th - I cant think of a better US conductor-orchestra combo on record this decade
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 4 December 2019 22:43 (four years ago) link
NAC in Ottawa commissioning a Philip Glass work in honour of Peter Jennings: https://abcnews.go.com/US/philip-glass-write-orchestral-work-honor-news-anchor/story?id=67679791
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Thursday, 12 December 2019 20:09 (four years ago) link
shuddering with pleasure at the idea of Philip Glass composing 30 second stingers for news broadcasts
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Thursday, 12 December 2019 20:25 (four years ago) link
went to the guggenheim last night for Tigue and Roomful of Teeth and Caroline Shaw presented a new piece that was as lovely as anything I've heard all year.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 17 December 2019 15:13 (four years ago) link
This is how workers at Opéra de Paris go on strike (sound on, please). pic.twitter.com/SN682BM6ze— Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) December 18, 2019
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Wednesday, 18 December 2019 05:07 (four years ago) link
PROMO: The latest cd from my choir is out now: https://open.spotify.com/album/4k1FnvR7AIzP2IQCfrFEoz?si=gqG6dtAaTi-2UpcRWuY6Bw Danish choir music, amateur choir, but the Vagn Holmboe is pretty great, at least.
― Frederik B, Friday, 27 December 2019 13:52 (four years ago) link
'Grats! I always have time for more Holmboe.
― pomenitul, Friday, 27 December 2019 13:56 (four years ago) link
New thread for a new year: Rolling Classical 2020
― Un sang impur (Sund4r), Sunday, 5 January 2020 20:32 (four years ago) link